American Icons

University Heights Presbyterian Church 2167 University Avenue, Bronx, NY, United States

American Icons is a collaborative project centering music and stories by Americans who live in the shadows cast by our national myths and monuments. Whose stories are told, whose erased? Student and community residents from Bronx Community College (BCC), the home of the “Hall of Fame of Great Americans,” will share their own experiences learning and working among monuments that fail to reflect America’s diversity. Musicians from Juilliard will interweave these stories with poetic and musical context from America’s past and present.

Free

Fire Exit (MFA Thesis Show)

205 Hudson Gallery 205 Hudson Street, New York, NY, United States

Including work from SPCUNY Actionists Quinlan Maggio and sgp, open daily from 10am-6pm. Events on May 19, 20, 27, and 30.

Parade of the Old New

Clemente Soto Velez Cultural & Educational Center 107 Suffolk Street, New York, NY, United States

The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural & Educational Center presents ‘Parade of the Old New’, a solo presentation of works by Zoe Beloff including a large format mural on cardboard and a correlating publication. Dates: May 20th - June 12th. Opening Reception: May 27th 5-9pm.

Free

Apply to be a 2022-23 SPCUNY Faculty Fellow

SPCUNY grants for faculty fund faculty-led projects and assemble a cohort of faculty and students committed to socially engaged art. All CUNY faculty affiliated with any campus who want to develop a project at the intersection of social justice and art are eligible to apply, regardless of title or rank. Applicants can be teaching (including adjunct) or non-teaching faculty, but they must have an active CUNY appointment in at least the fall semester of their fellowship year. Fellows will receive $2,000 stipends towards the fulfillment of their project and access to Materials for the Arts. Applications are due by July 1, 2022 for the 2022-23 academic year.

The Slow Drop: Musicians’ Village

Musicians' Village Bartholomew St. and N. Prieur St., New Orleans, LA, United States

In this one-time live event, New Orleans Musicians’ Village will be transformed into a shifting soundscape of intersecting performances.

A new work of sound art by Angel Nevarez and Valerie Tevere in collaboration with Danny Abel, Sam Albright, Denise Bonis, Tom Chute, Sula Janet Evans, Helen Gillet, Edward Lee Jr., Thomas McDonald, Margie Perez, Troy Sawyer, Gabriel Velasco, and Chip Wilson. Curated by Anna Mecugni.

With a participatory ancestral tribute to Musicians’ Village founding resident Council Chief Joseph Jenkins in the Black Indian tradition, featuring Big Chiefs Kevin Goodman and Kevin Turner who co-curated the production with Maroon Queen Reesie (Cherice Harrison-Nelson).

Free

Flushing Town Hall Professional Development Workshop: Artists in the Community with SPCUNY alumnae!

Free professional development workshop presented in partnership with Flushing Town Hall. During this Zoom conversation, we will speak with artists from the Social Practice CUNY program, Naomi Kuo and Cristina Ferrigno, whose practices are based in working with the community and discuss best practices when connecting with people to create art and tell their stories. This will be a moderated conversation with space for Q&A.

Free

AntiBlackness in the Academy

Organized by Center for Ethnic Racial & Religious Understanding and co-sponsored by SPCUNY, this online conference will feature keynote Nikole Hannah-Jones and offer 8 workshops to examine what antiblackness is and provide participants tools to engage with it. This year's Innovation Exchange (2-day mini conference) will explore anti-Blackness within the academy. This conference stands on the shoulders of the work of scholars, artists and activists who graduated or worked at CUNY like Audre Lorde, Faith Ringgold, Toni Cade Bambara, Shirley Chisolm, and A. Phillip Randolph who came and demanded justice and dignity for Black people. During the Summer uprisings of 2020 students, faculty and staff saw messages of support from many universities, however much of the landscape of antiBlackness within the university often continued uninterrupted. This conference center Black people and is welcome to everyone and offers tools to address systemic antiBlackness in the academy and the necessary joy rituals that allow Black people to exist in the future.

Free

Launch Party: Las hermanas de la milpa / The sisters of the milpa

Bruckner Mott Haven Garden 678 East 136th Street, Bronx, NY, United States

Organized by Faculty Lead of Archives in common and Social Practice CUNY fellow Ángeles Donoso Macaya, this event marks the launching of Las hermanas de la milpa: comienza con la calabaza / The sisters of the milpa: it begins with the squash, a bilingual and indigenous (Mixteco) cookbook by chef Natalia Mendez of La Morada restaurant. Like other initiatives devised by La Morada, this book seeks to disseminate indigenous knowledges and practices, and at the same time to conceptualize and expand the ways of doing mutual aid.

Free

The Art of Un-War: Screening & Discussion with Krzysztof Wodiczko

The Segal Theatre The Graduate Center, CUNY, 365 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, United States

A special screening of the 60-minute award-winning documentary The Art of Un-War directed by Maria Niro. The film chronicles the life and work of artist and educator, Krzysztof Wodiczko, focusing on major themes in Wodiczko’s oeuvre such as war, trauma, and displacement. The event is hosted by Art Science Connect and supported by Social Practice Queens, Galerie Lelong, Polish Cultural Institute, New York, and the CUNY Central Office of Veteran Affairs. RSVP requested.

Free

Alexandra Juhasz and Nishant Shah: 5 Ways to Look at Misinformation

The Skylight Room Room 9100, The Graduate Center, CUNY, 365 Fifth Ave, New York, NY, United States

Digital media scholars Alexandra Juhasz (2022-23 SPCUNY Faculty Fellow) and Nishant Shah, authors of Really Fake (University of Minnesota and meson presses, 2021), discuss story, poetry, and other human logics of care, intelligence, and dignity, to explore socio-technological and politico-aesthetic emergences in a world where information overload has become a new ontology of not-knowing. Co-sponsored with Art & Science Connect.

Free

Mapping & Photography Workshop presented by The Catcalling Project

Abrons Arts Center 466 Grand St., New York, NY, United States

Mapping and photography workshop asking participants to think about their relation to space in ways that are both familiar and unfamiliar, exploring themes of safety, community, and place making.

Free

Image is a Seed: Student Addition

Video Essays of Prof. Mottel's Brooklyn College, Digital Art Student's Final Projects, Broadcast Online & Archived via ESS.org. Image is a Seed: Student Addition is a group online broadcast of video artwork composed by the students of CUNY, utilizing the archived photography of Syeus Mottel. Mottel was a photojournalist who photographed 1960’s and 70’s political events, everyday people, ambient street scenes, and cultural events of music, theater, and art.

Free